Posts Tagged ‘Europe’

Jews in France want to have their “gateau” and eat it too, according to U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, who met in Paris with French Jewish leaders on Monday.

“What I heard was a real desire to stay in France and have France be a place where they felt safe,” Lew told Jewish media in a conference call from Poland. Lew was in Europe to lead a U.S. delegation to ceremonies marking 70 years since the liberation of the Nazi death camps at Auschwitz.

He said Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia and Union of Jewish Communities of France President Dr. Joel Mergui told him they “believe in France.”

Jewish leaders did not hide their communities’ mourning for losses resulting from the horrific terror attacks perpetrated earlier this month, Lew noted. But they had “deep convictions in the importance of the values they believe in, in France” as “we believe in, in the United States,” he told reporters.

The American official, who himself is an observant Jew, carefully avoided an mention of the controversial speech in Paris by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at the Grand Synagogue in Paris following the millions-strong unity march against terror.

Netanyahu and French President Francois Hollande – who had earlier requested the Israeli prime minister not come to the event in the first place – were both greeted by cheers from the crowd at the synagogue.

“Those who murdered Jews at a synagogue in Jerusalem and those who murdered Jews and [Gentile and Jewish] journalists in Paris are part of the same problem. We must condemn them and fight them!” Netanyahu asserted in his address.

But the Israeli leader also reminded those gathered that the Jewish homeland remained available as an option to Jews who wished to consider an alternative and move away from growing anti-Semitism in Europe, in France.

“Any Jew who chooses to come to Israel will be greeted with open arms and an open heart,” he assured those gathered. “It is not a foreign nation, and hopefully they and you will one day come to Israel. Am Yisrael Chai!” (“The people of Israel lives!”)

Netanyahu was roundly criticized for what was seen as an escape option to French Jews on the heels of one of the bloodiest terror attacks the community has seen. But there were no secrets that day: not one person in the building was unaware of the growing danger to the Jews.

At an Israel Bonds gala in Florida, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer bluntly defended Netanyahu’s speech. “I am proud that my prime minister made clear to all French Jews that while they have the right to be protected in France, they will be welcomed with open arms in Israel,” he said.

It is impossible to deny that anti-Semitism is rising dramatically in Europe in general and in France in particular. In the past year alone the figures have doubled with nearly 1,000 anti-Semitic incidents reported. More than 230 involved outright violence.

In 2014, 7,000 Jews left France; the majority decided to make their homes in the Jewish State. The Jewish Agency for Israel told media earlier this month it expects to see as many as 10,000 French Jewish immigrants by the end of 2015, if not more.

Oddly, Rabbi Korsia told the crowd at the Grand Synagogue during Netanyahu’s visit, “The French people has done its duty. Until now, we always felt isolated. But that is not the case anymore… Now everyone must assume his or her personal duty.” After reading the names of all 17 victims of the past week’s slaughter, the rabbi said, “What would France be without fraternity?”

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu used the visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Sunday to promote new markets in the Far East to reduce dependence on what he called the “wave of Islamization, anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism” sweeping Europe.

Decades of European condemnation of Israel, from allowing Jews to live in Judea and Samaria to Europe’s parallel financial prop for a failed Palestinian Authority, reached the boiling point with the announcement by the International Criminal Court that will begin to examine if there are grounds to investigate Israel for war crimes in the counter-terror war against Hamas last summer.

Netanyahu said that the visit of Abe and a huge delegation of 200 officials and businessmen from Japan will boost Israel’s economy while the Europe is being overrun by a wave of hate.

Netanyahu added:

These waves are washing over it and we would like to ensure that the State of Israel will have varied markets around the world. We would also like to decrease cartelization.

He noted “that the Japanese economy is the third largest in the world and there is a common desire, which found expression in my visit to Japan several months ago, to tighten relations, increase trade and increase investments between Israel and Japan. This fits in with my clear vision to vary our markets. This found expression in my trip to China one and a half years ago and in my meeting at the recent UN General Assembly with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as well as in the current visit. This is part of Israel’s opening to eastern markets.”

Israel Is not boycotting Europe or ignoring its marketers but is “also advancing the development of Israel in other areas.” In his welcome to Prime Minister Abe later in the day, Netanyahu said, “The future belongs to those who innovate. Japan is a country of innovation; Israel is a country of innovation. Together we can do a lot more and gain a lot more….

I believe that Israel, in turn, must diversify its markets to include Japan and the other great economies of Asia.”

Cyber security is one of the biggest strengths in the Israeli hi-tech industry and is sought by countries all over the world.

Israel has opened a trade office in Osaka in addition to operations in Tokyo.

Abe said, “Bilateral ties between Japan and Israel are now deepening in every field….It is said that hundreds of world leading global firms featuring cutting edge technologies now have their R&D bases in Israel…. We are now positioning ourselves in the major trend of marking a turning point in our economic relations.”

German-born Luise Rainer, the first movie actress to win two successive Oscars for best actress, died on Tuesday at the age of 104 in her home in London.

She was born in Duesseldorf and grew up in Hamburg. Rainer’s family escaped Nazi Germany and Hollywood talent scouts found her when she was a stage actress in Vienna.

She moved to the United States in 1935. Her first Academy Award was for a relatively small part in The Great Ziegfeld and the second for the role of a poor Chinese farm wife in The Good Earth, in 1936 and 1937 respectively.

Rainer identified herself as an Austrian because of the taint of being a German, but Hollywood did not give her serious roles. She moved back to Europe in 1943 and lived most of the time in Switzerland but had a plush home in London.

The European Jewish Congress has called on European leaders to condition future aid and cooperation between the European Union and the Palestinians on the end of rampant incitement against Israel and Jews in the Palestinian Authority in the wake of the terror attack against worshipers in a synagogue in Jerusalem this morning.

“The European Union, as was seen in the Foreign Ministers statement yesterday, has placed too much focus on Israeli actions and have completely ignored far more important issues like incessant Palestinian incitement which directly leads to massacres like the one we saw at the synagogue this morning and over the last couple of weeks,” Dr. Moshe Kantor, EJC president said.

“The Europeans have an ability to influence and a tool with which to pressure the Palestinians to end the daily incitement emanating from its leaders, education system, media and religious institutions, and that is the financial assistance which is helping aid this system,” he added.

“There should be a massive rethink in Europe about the best way to achieve true peace, because while there has been an obsessive focus on settlement building, incitement to hatred and violence, Anti-Semitism and religious hatred, is by far the greatest obstacle to any lasting peace. The Europeans should demand that this ends immediately and threaten to withdraw all aid and cooperation until it does, before we see more massacres like the one this morning in Jerusalem….

“By ignoring Palestinian incitement to hatred and violence. the international community has allowed for the creation of a culture of immunity and impunity in the Palestinian Authority and its official institutions.”

“Ignoring all Palestinian offenses and focusing only on Israel’s perceived infractions is a soft bigotry of low expectations and should end immediately.”

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (JTA) — The summer war between Israel and Hamas released an explosion of online anti-Semitic hate speech in several European countries, an international watchdog reported.

The assertion came in a report on 10 European countries released Wednesday by the International Network Against Cyber Hate and the Paris-based International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism — or INACH and LICRA respectively.

In the Netherlands, the Complaints Bureau Discrimination Internet, or MDI, recorded more instances of online hate speech against Jews during the two-month conflict than during the entire six months that preceded it, revealed the report, which the groups presented in Berlin at a meeting on anti-Semitism organized by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, or OSCE.

More than half of the 143 expressions of anti-Semitism documented by MDI in July and August, when Israel was fighting Hamas in Gaza, contained incitements to violence against Jews, the report stated. Roughly three quarters of the complaints documented in that period occurred on social media.

In Britain, the Community Security Trust recorded 140 anti-Semitic incidents on social media from January to August, with more than half occurring in July alone.
And in Austria, the Forum against Antisemitism recorded 59 anti-Semitic incidents online during the conflagration of violence between Israel and Palestinians — of which 21 included incitements to violence — compared to only 14 incidents in the six months that preceded it.

The data on online anti-Semitic incidents corresponded with an increase in real-life assaults, LICRA and INACH wrote.

The report’s recommendations included a submission by the Belgian League Against Anti-Semitism, which called for OSCE member states to adopt the “Working Definition of Anti-Semitism” that the European Union’s agency for combating xenophobia enacted in 2005 but later dropped. The definition includes references to the demonization of Israel.

“There is a war against the Jews on the internet and on the streets” in Europe, European Jewish Congress (EJC) president Dr. Moshe Cantor said Saturday night, hours after an Antwerp rabbi was stabbed in the throat while he was walking to synagogue.

“Until there is a crackdown on incitement to hatred and anti-Semitism, then more people will believe that these types of attacks are legitimate,” Kantor added.

The EJC called on authorities across Europe to provide Jewish communities with a sense of security after the latest attack.

“Jews in Europe have lost a normal sense of security that worsens with every attack on Jews and Jewish institutions which are taking place with alarming regularity,” according to Kantor. “As citizens of Europe, it is the responsibility of the authorities, political, judicial and law enforcement, to ensure that Jews feel free to walk the streets in the open and live their lives absent of the fear these attacks generate….

“At the root of these attacks is the ongoing incitement against Jews from across the political spectrum and radical Islamists,”

When will European leaders take action, real action, against the radical Islamic threat to the continent?

A good guess would be that the time will come after Jews leave for Israel, if not elsewhere, and the Gentiles become next target of Muslim fanatics, who are rapidly emerging as the de facto leaders of Islam.

The British government finally woke up and vowed to destroy ISIS after the radical Islamic group posted on Friday a video that purported to show the beheading of British aid worker Alan Henning Friday.

It was the fourth time ISIS, AKA Islamic State and lately IS, has posted a video of beheadings, the first ones being American journalists James Foley and afterwards a Jew, Steven Sotloff.

Britain, like all European countries, is being overwhelmed with a burgeoning Muslim population, and the fundamentalists, whether a majority or a minority, have hijacked the new demographics and already has established Sharia law as the supreme law in some communities.

The more the Muslim demographic revolution overruns countries such as Belgium and France, the more the governments are afraid to do anything that might upset them and cause violence. The more they refrain, the more the radicals show their presence through fear.

Fear is the biggest weapon of radical Islamists, and ISIS has mastered the strategy through beheadings. It is more brutal than simply hanging or shooting someone in the back of the head, but the end result is the same. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu tries and tries, so far unsuccessfully, to convince the world that ISIS and Hamas are one and the same. The West doesn’t buy it because doing so would ruin the peace process sham.

Everyone denies reality until it happens to close to home.

ISIS gave advance notice to Britain that British aid worker Henning was next in line, and the British Parliament last promptly voted to join the American-led coalition to strike ISI in Iraq, which the Royal Air Force bombed on Saturday.

Friday’s video sows the ISIS executioner, apparently the same British-accented so-called human being who decapitated three previous victims. It also shows Henning, with his tied behind his back.

“Because of our parliament’s decision to attack the Islamic state, I, as a member of the British public, will now pay the price,” Henning said in the video.

Cameron now is boiling.

“It is senseless. It is completly unforgivable. Anyone in any doubt about this organization can now see how truly repulsive it is and barbaric it is,” he said Saturday.